There Are Also Many Lions, So That It Is By No
Means Safe To Travel That Way Unless In Large Companies Of At Least A
Hundred Men.
I passed this way along with a numerous company, yet we
were in much danger from the lions and
Other wild beasts which followed
us, insomuch that we were forced to fight them with darts, slings, and
arrows, using also the aid of dogs, and after all we escaped with some
difficulty. On arriving at Aden I feigned myself sick, lurking in the
mosque all day, and going only out under night to speak with the pilot
of the ship formerly mentioned, from whom I obtained a bark in which I
secretly left Aden.
We at length began our voyage for Persia, to which we were to go in the
first place, our bark being laden with _rubricke_, a certain red earth
used for dying cloth, with which fifteen or twenty vessels are yearly
freighted from Arabia Felix. After having sailed six days on our voyage,
a sudden tempest of contrary wind drove us back again and forced us to
the coast of Ethiopia, where we took shelter in the port of _Zeyla_. We
remained here five days to see the city, and to wait till the tempest
was over and the sea become quiet. The city of Zeyla is a famous mart
for many commodities, and has marvellous abundance of gold and ivory,
and a prodigious number of black slaves, which are procured by the
Mahometan or Moorish inhabitants, by means of war, from Ethiopia in the
country of Prester John, the Christian king of the Jacobins or
Abyssinians.
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